Page 28 of On the Brink of Passion

“Hey what?”

“I was thinking . . .”

“Uh-oh.”

“I know, right? The last time I had an idea I ended up in bed with a beautiful and accomplished woman. I should really stop doing that.”

I smack him in the chest, but all he does is pull me closer, the hair covering his pecs tickling my nose. So I tug on it and he lets out a little yelp while I pull away, smiling up at him with a faux-innocent look on my features. “You were saying? An idea?”

“Yeah. Don’t yell at me, okay?”

This almost guarantees that I will yell. “I make no promises.”

He rolls those baby blues of his and shakes his head. “Anyway . . . I feel like one of the reasons you’re freaking about this, about us, is that everything’s been the same, right? The competitions we’ve won, our path here, being in second before the free skate. It’s all the same.”

It would be hard to yell with this lump in my throat. I don’t say anything because my wide eyes and rigid body must say everything he needs to know.

“The thing is, it doesn’t have to be. We don’t have to win tomorrow. I’ll take a dive. I’ll do a double Salchow instead of a triple. Put a hand down on my double axel. Hell, I will do a belly flop as soon as we get on the ice and swim around the rink like a fish and we’ll finish dead last. I will tank this, Jubilee, so we can be together. If that’s what it would take, that’s what I would do.”

That’s what he meant about the yelling.

I push him away from me, and he’s lucky he’s on the wall side of the bed because if he weren’t, he would’ve fallen off. And I wouldn’t have even felt bad about it, not like last time. He would’ve deserved landing on the cold hard floor with his naked ass for spouting this . . . thisnonsense.

And because I don’t feel quite powerful enough, I roll up onto my knees to loom over him in the only way I can, and jab a finger into his chest. “Are you fucking kidding me? That is the least rational thing I’ve ever heard anyone say. You would seriously give up this thing you’ve been working for your whole life just to date me? Because I’ve got news for you, buddy. I made Stephen wait sixteen years to put a ring on it, and I’m not in a big hurry to have another one. Also, it’s not like you could ruin just your part of the program. You’d ruin me, too. And I don’t want to lose. You do anything like that, and you are a dead person. Do you understand me?”

He raises his hands in defeat, looking like he believes I might very well shank him with my toe pick right now. Obviously, I would wait until after we’d skated to commit homicide.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“So there will be no tanking, no mistakes, right? You’re going to give this all you have, leave it all out on the ice, and you are going to be so perfect I’d need a magnifying glass to find a mistake. Got it?”

He nods, and gets this insolent smirk on his face. If I were a certain kind of girl, I’d wipe it off with a kiss, but I’m not. I’m also still kind of ticked off at him. How could he possibly suggest such a thing? God. “What? Why is your face doing that?”

“I’m just wondering how anyone who’s ever met you could accuse you of being frosty.”

That earns him a punch, but my fist basically bounces off his ridiculous biceps. It’s annoying. “I have busted my ass for this chance for my entire life, and so have you. It would be the height of absurdity to give it up just so I could date someone.”

He’s smiling in the face of my sneer, and he’s charming but also infuriating. “Hey, I didn’t think you’d actually say yes. But you know some women would at least be touched by the offer. Say something along the lines of, ‘Oh, Beckett, I can’t believe you would make that kind of sacrifice for me. It’s not necessary, because I want to win too, but I so appreciate the offer. Of course we can be together.’”

After finishing his ridiculous high-pitched, lash-fluttering imitation of some imaginary woman, he’s making a vomit-inducing kissy face. Which earns him another punch.

“Hey, what’s with all the punching?”

“You really thought I was going to fall for that? What kind of woman do you take me for? The kind that lives for a man? Damn right that earned a punch. Just that face earned a punch. And what the hell would you have done if I’d said yes?”

His light eyebrows go up and his mouth drops open, but no words come out.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” I could get up, go to my own bed. I’m sitting up after all. It wouldn’t be that hard to swing my legs over the side of the bed, stand up and take the couple of steps. And though I know it’ll be coming soon enough, I can’t bring myself to do it right now. So I flop back down next to Beckett and snuggle into his side.

Beckett

In the morning when I wake up, it must be early. Jubilee’s not awake, which means her alarm hasn’t gone off. It also means that my arm is asleep because she’s got her head pillowed on my shoulder. Don’t care. Which is when I notice a few other things.

When we fell asleep, we were naked. I mean, bare-assed naked. Jubilee’s not naked anymore. No, she’s wearing a pajama shirt with what appear to be llamas on it. Given how her leg feels hitched up on my thigh, I’m guessing she’s also sporting the matching pants. Which means she got up after I fell asleep andclimbed back into my bed.

And for her to put pajamas on and climb back in my bed? I’m sure some guys would be insulted, but it would be because either they’re idiots or their girl is nothing like Jubilee. Her being clothed in these soft, childish clothes—her sole indulgence of her squishy side—it’s more intimate in a way than when she’s naked. Sex was part of the deal, affection is not, and yet that’s what I find myself liking best about this.

Sure, if I’m lucky she’ll wake up and want a repeat performance of last night, but if she doesn’t, that’s fine. I’ll take her soft breathing, the occasional tightening of her hand around my waist. She nuzzles my shoulder, and I hold my breath, almost hoping she won’t wake up. Not quite yet. She doesn’t stir further, and though I’ve got an impulse to kiss the part in her dark hair at the top of her head, I won’t.

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